Kingdoms of Kalamar: The Death of Kings

Ever since I saw it, the book has been calling me. The promises of power that it holds, but yet I have not been able to bring myself to open it. I fear what it may do to me if I do. I know it holds evil and I may be forever changed if I read its contents. So for months I have held onto it and every day that I do I come closer and closer to finally giving in to the temptation. But then I met Brand. At first I thought he was just some religious d-bag trying to push his religion on me. I just became a member of the church so I could get access to their library. I don’t want to hear all the crap this guy is spewing. Then I heard the word “power”. Now he had my attention. He started to tell me that through the Riftmaster church I could be a god. A God. I had always imagined myself the ruler of a kingdom. But I could rule the world. Have infinite power. The cleric didn’t say how I could accomplish this, but he did say that I would have to stay away from evil. If he only knew how close I currently was to it. His words gave me a lot to think about. He may be full of it, but maybe not.

Then it happened. I died. I never thought it would happen this soon. I still had so much to do. I could feel my spirit leave my body, but suddenly I heard a call. It asked me if I wanted to come back. Yes! Please yes! When I awoke, I was in the hut with everyone. Brand had brought me back. He didn’t have to, but he did. I owe him a huge debt. He wants to teach me the ways of the Riftmaster. I think I’ll follow him. He obviously thought I was worth saving. I just hope I’m strong enough. The book keeps calling.

It was quiet in the hut as Flynn sat, leaning against his traveling back, eyes scanning the interior of his safe haven. Astrid lay shivering on the ground, swaddled in whatever spare clothing the group could contribute. Brand was sat next to her, clutching his body and shaking uncontrollably, while Diogenes produced an ethereal fire to keep them as war as possible. Odom, for his part, lie exhausted on the ground, the encounter in the false tomb having sapped him of all his strength.

And Flynn felt fine.

He had barely experienced the chill of the icy lake. He didn’t have to swim back to shore, to fight an oppressive current, or drag himself up the sheer wall to safety. A simple strum on his lute and he was out of his horrific underwater trap. But Astrid had died, and he could have saved her. Were it not for the divine intervention of Brand, she would have remained dead still. The holy man had brought her back. Flynn had watched, helpless above them, as the cleric dragged his friend from the deadly blue depths and up the face of the wall. All the musician could do was play his music and create another one of those magical huts. Another bloody hut, while the real heroes brought a woman back from the grasp of death itself.

The worst part was that Flynn could have prevented it all. While he watched Astrid get battered by the water and frozen into unconsciousness, he suddenly remembered that his little teleportation trick had room for two. He could have grabbed her and brought her with him. But no. He had to show off. He thought it would be funny if they all swam back to the surface, scaled the edge of the chasm, and found their musical friend playing a little ditty and asking what took them so long. He didn’t think to bring the lady with him. He was too busy worrying about looking better than everybody else.

And she had died because of him. Because of his ego.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid bastard,” Flynn thought to himself as he watched his friends shudder and grimace. “Stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID. You couldn’t, just for once, do something practical. You couldn’t put safety ahead of showmanship, could you? Just like when you stomped off down that staircase and nearly got everybody buried alive. You stupid bastard. Stupid stupid!”

Flynn had laughed it off at the time, tried to cover up how wretched he felt with yet more bravado and affected disregard. He had practiced his flippant attitude for years, refined his devil-may-care persona, buried that seething mass of self-loathing he felt, the knowledge that he was a fraud and an impostor, and most days he believed his own rubbish. He could keep looking at himself in a mirror if he believed he was the charmingly reckless, dashing folk hero he pretended to be.

Here in the hut, however, faced with the consequences of his “charming” recklessness, confronted by his own uselessness, and surrounded by people he truly felt were his betters, Flynn Flashwood felt cheap, extraneous, and worthless. He felt like a Flashwood.

Brand slayed giants and faced down dragons alone. Brand put others ahead of his own wellbeing. Brand brought a woman back from the dead and didn’t even seek praise for his deed. He was an actual hero. A big damn hero. What was Flynn Flashwood, compared to men such as he? A preening, prancing, lute-playing joke of a man. A hero only to those too gullible to see through his act. A fool, whose most notable skill was convincing other fools of his greatness.

Diogenes glanced over to Flynn, and the bard couldn’t tell if he was being regarded with contempt or sheer indifference. He never could tell with that quiet, private druid. Flynn simply flashed him a smile. A carefree, charming smile. A liar’s smile.

The light in the great library was dim at best. No candles were allowed in here for obvious reasons. Musty old tomes, and scrolls were fire waiting to happen. Instead of torches or candles, light came from glowing orbs that hovered in the air above the shelves and bookcases. They were irregularly placed and cast deep, dark shadows in the back portions of the enclave. The smell of that place made Brand happy. It was old leather, and dust: warm and inviting. Very much unlike the smells of the forge. The forge was sharp, and edgy. This was soft, and heady. Brand was finding himself spending more and more time down here. He found a love for learning, and reading. A love for languages, and lore that he would have said was crazy 2 years ago.

It had been two years since he last put hammer to metal. Two years since he last saw his little house across the street. He lived about two blocks away from the temple, but he hadn’t set foot in that house since the day he joined the church. Like most things Brand put his mind to, he was totally consumed by his tasks as an initiate into the church of the Riftmaster. The temple was a welcoming place. He felt that he had a place here as soon as Keyholder Skoria came to his shop that day, two years ago, all excited and asking about the Riftmaster. Skoria went on about magic and balance, and had asked the smith boy if he wanted a home. Brand liked that idea, and so he said yes, as long as he could still come to his forge and pound metal when the need struck. Skoria said that he could do as he liked as long as time permitted, and that was all it took to convince the boy-smith.

Brand was finding that time, however, was not as permissive as Skoria. There was no time to smith. There was no time to even sleep. He found that once consumed by something it was very, very hard to not finish that thing. Brand was finding out more about himself as the days turned to years. He was different than most men. Smarter, stronger, and more resilient than any of these old priests. He could stay awake for days at a time and not feel the effects. He could learn things faster than just about all of them. He learned three languages that year, and was working on his fourth. So he consumed himself in the library. He consumed himself with learning magic. He was finding that he could take that same passion that he applied to the forge, and apply it wherever he saw something new to learn. About two weeks after first discovering the great library, Brand was struck by the first of the dreams.

_ “Gold, and shining light. A great table spread out before the world of men. A table with majestic figures all seated and haloed in radiance. The table stretched out further than the eye could see, and sitting at it were all the gods of men. Some were arguing over things that no mortal could hope to understand, and some were placid in there sitting. Almost waiting for something to happen before they were needed. Others were huddled over their respective seats of power in the world soaking up the worship of men, and even reaching down if the necessity called for it. In the dream, Brand was floating ever forward. Glimpsing all the gods in their glory. He floated among them, un-noticed. He was being drawn by something ever forward. He knew in his soul that the Riftmaster was leading him across the table. He knew in his soul that this dream was more than a dream. Sure enough, he came upon the Sorcerer Supreme in all his glory. A skeletal figure in black and white robes shrouded by a hood of shadow. When he arrived at this seat his journey across the table stopped. The Riftmaster noticed him at once, and curled his fingers in a gesture. Brand was unsure of what the gesture meant, but he could only surmise that the great Riftmaster was pointing. Brand looked at where the skeletal fingers pointed and he saw a Golden God. A lady clad all in gold, and platinum. She was holding a platinum staff in one hand, and golden scales in the other. She was beautiful. As he gazed upon her, he saw things that made his heart wretch. He saw the gold turn to rust, and the staff fall from her hands. He saw her beautiful face and beautiful skin crumble into dust. In a moment she was gone, and what replaced her sickened Brand to his soul.”

_

He woke sweating and screaming. He dressed himself and went down to the library. He poured over books and scrolls. He needed an answer to what he just saw. Somehow he was guided to the back of the enclave. His hands were vibrating with power, and he was still sweating and anxious. He knew where to look. That was in his dream as well. He walked slowly over to a pile of scrolls in the back corner of the Library, and ran his massive hands over every piece of scroll he could find. He was shaking. He saw his hands as they touched the parchment, and he could see how unsteady they were. On the bottom of the pile, buried away from the world was a scrap of a piece of a scroll. It had an author, and the only legible writing was a name. The title: “Concerning Gods, and the balance, -Winston Chatterly.” He continued reading what he could, but the only other thing he could make out was another name. “Krin the Arcane, Blackmage of Tellene.”

Lieutenant Verene slashed this way and that, felling hobgoblin after hobgoblin with the famed brutality of a Son of Scorn. Or a daughter, in this case. One of Malleus’ favorite soldiers, Verene’s mercilessness in combat earned her the nickname of The Silencer, and Flynn Flashwood noted with some fear that The Silent would be just as apt a moniker. Her mouth remained tightly shut, her eyes unblinking, her face a statue, as she cleaved through the enemy ranks with frightening precision.

The fight had lasted near an hour. Almost one hour had passed since Verene’s unit fell to an ambush orchestrated by Duth’Sarut, a chieftain much loathed by the Sons for a year of wicked attacks. Flynn was not cut out for any of this. He had fallen in with the Sons of Scorn as a quick way to make money. Soldiers craved entertainment like any other, and Flynn’s ability with a lute, not to mention tales of macabre heroism, seemed to please Malleus’ people tremendously. He was simply providing some light melodies for a routine journey when the hobgoblins fell upon them. Now he was hiding under a caravan, watching a woman with a greatsword carve through chunks of orange flesh with the calmly rehearsed perfection of a dancer.

Most of the unit had been slain. A few soldiers were scattered into the greater wooded area. If there were others nearby, Flynn couldn’t see them. He saw only Verene cut down the last of the hobgoblins…

… almost the last.

He strode out with a hate in his eyes that Flynn had not witnessed before nor since. A boiling, bubbling, seething hatred that Flynn was sure could kill with a single glare. While the bard cowered, however, the Lieutenant met his gaze and did not break. Duth’Sarut, deftly wielding a halberd with one hand as if it were a rapier, walked at a pace most men would call running. Sparks flew as their blades kissed, a clanging of steel so loud it drowned the noise of men and hobgoblins dying among the trees. She ducked a sideways swing, he kicked away a thrust with an armored knee. Flynn watched in both terror and admiration as the battle unfolded. The violence was matched only by the beauty of it all, a deadly poetry between artists of slaughter.

It was over all too quickly.

The speartip of Duth’s halberd found its way through Verene’s armor, and at last her statue cracked. Bewilderment, absolute surprise, only a trace of pain, flickered on the soldier’s face, as her head shakily turned to regard the now smirking face of her slayer. Then anger. A sudden roar of rage as she pulled herself back and swung her greatsword, painting a silver arc through the air that sliced through the sinewy neck of the feared hobgoblin chieftain. Her final effort spent, the sword flew from Verene’s hands and landed with a clatter onto the body parts of her prior victims. Both she and her opponent fell to their knees in unison, one without a head. Then they both lay still in the dirt.

Flynn wasn’t sure when it became truly silent, but it was growing dark when he finally crawled from under the wagon, trembling and stumbling. He staggered toward Verene, her face returned to that same calm it wore in life, now perfectly framed in death. He’d never seen her so far from her sword. That wouldn’t do. She would become a part of history for this, and history should not say she died without her beloved greatsword.

The weapon was almost too heavy for the musician, and he struggled with both hands to raise it from the ground. Resting it against his shoulder, he trudged back to the corpse of the Lieutenant, prepared to lay it next to her body, and then maybe find his own way back to some city. No more of this soldiering life, he thought. No more hobgoblins.

That’s when Malleus’ company arrived, to see him with Verene’s bloody sword in his hand, and a headless hobgoblin chief at his feet.

In the months since Flynn thought back to that day, he could never work out why he stayed silent. Why, when soldiers congratulated him for avenging their beloved Verene, he allowed them to think so. Perhaps he allowed shame at his own cowardice to silence him. Maybe he was just too shellshocked to process what had happened, and it eventually became too late for the truth. Or perhaps he just loved the adoration, and went with it.

The Legend of Flynn Flashwood. A lie. A sham. And also Flynn’s ticket to whatever city in the empire he wanted.

He’d make up for it somehow, he thought to himself. Maybe if he could live up to the legend, if he could make the lies real, then it would all be okay.

And he’d immortalize Verene in song. He’d get around to it. Definitely.

When I was little my parents sent me away to live in Bet Seder with some friends of my parents. I live in the country so living in the city was going to be a new experience to me. I knew little about the the civilized world but always had a curiosity about plants. When I arrived the first thing they told me was to find some employment to help pay for things around the house. I was lucky enough to find a job at the alchemist shop. He wouldn’t allow me to mix any of the elixirs but instead he showed me what kind of herbs to pick so he could make his potions. As the years went by he trusted me more to create minor potions of healing and some antitoxin remedies. I spent most of my free time in the forest just wandering around, finding rare herbs and taking naps underneath the trees. Life was good. Whenever trouble arose I would just run and hide. Sometimes I would get away, but there were other times where I would just barely make it out alive. I was as the forest was protecting me. I never questioned it nor said anything to anyone out of fear of being mocked or made fun of, they would probably just think I’m insane and have me locked away.

It was just another normal day, when the army announced that the Orcs were terrorizing the outskirts of the forest and they were heading this direction. They said that Captain Malleus is going to battle this horde but needed more guides to help get regiments through the forest. I have helped Captain Malleus a few time in the past by finding him some criminals hiding in the forest, plus I love this forest dearly, the only option I had was to join. I knew the woods better than most. The regiment was about fifty men and a musician. No clue why the need a musician but he seemed to keep their spirits high and was pretty good at it. As long as if he didn’t give away our location I was fine with his playing. As the weeks went by we became closer to the enemy front line, everyone was one edge. I became friends with a couple of the soldiers, one which had given me a book with a four leaf clover in it. He said this book has brought him good luck throughout the years and had a feeling he wasn’t going to need it anymore given the circumstances. The book was a book discussing manners and etiquette. I don’t know if he was implying something or if he didn’t want his lucky book go to waste, rotting in a field when he dies. We thought we were a couple days away from the enemy front line, when all hell broke loose. We were smack dab in the middle of an orc pack. Due to miscalculations on the intel, we actually passed the battlefront and wound up walking right into them. There were too many of them and they had us by surprise. I can’t explain how I survived it was like there was a voice inside my head tell me to stay in the back of the group. When all the blood shed was happening the only thing I could think of was to get away. So I ran into the forest. It wasn’t that difficult know that I think back on it. It was as the forest opened itself up to me and closed behind me. The few orcs that chased after me seemed to be getting tangled up in vines and others got attacked by animals that seemed to come out of no where. Needless to say I was the only survivor. I waited a couple of days hiding in trees and bushes for the horde to pass. When everything felt safe I went back to where I left my group and was to only find dead bodies lying everywhere. I counted the bodies of the dead to see if there had maybe been some survivors. I was only able to count most of the regiment. Most bodies were torn to pieces others seemed to have been burned to a crisp. As far as I can tell I was the only survivor in the battle. If you want to call this massacre a battle that is.

The only thing I could do now was to head back to town. As I was hiking back, I began to realize that there was a good chance they are going to put the blame on me. I did nothing wrong tho. I was commissioned on to be a guide and guided them is what I did. They will not see it that way tho. I will be labeled a coward for not dieing with the soldiers or a traitor for leading them to their death. There is nothing left for me back in Bet Seder but ridicule or a noose. I stopped heading back towards town and started following the coast northwest. I eventually found a stream and a nice area in the forest were the was plenty of food. This place had a look to it like no other. It was peaceful, majestic, divine even. I felt as tho something wanted me to stay here. I had know where else to go so I will make this my home. As the months went by the plants started moving on their own, as if they were watching me, following me. I then realized that I could control a couple of these plants to do what I wanted it to do. Years went on like this. I was content with this lifestyle, but one day, it was as nature itself spoke to me. A voice from nowhere but everywhere was speaking to me. It explained to me what I am and why I can do the thing I do with the plants. It said I will learn from my future experiences to become more powerful, but for now the world is in trouble. It knew little of the danger, something was blocking its’ site from see the truth. The only information it had was that if it was not stopped the world could come to an end. That I must rid this evil and balance out the world. I need to travel to brandobia and speak with a duke that resides there. That this duke knows more about the evil that is coming about. I must first gather a small party so I have a better chance at defeating this powerful foe. It sent me to Bet Seder…….

It been about three years since I’ve been to Bet Seder. I can only hope that they do not remember my face. But atleast I have a strong contact in that town. It took about week to reach Bet Seder, faster than I should have made it. The only thing I could think of is that the forest deity helped me in my travels. The first thing I did was inquire about the whereabouts of Captain Malleus. I was pointed the direction of where he should be and to my surprise he was no longer in the Army, but instead a mercenary. I told him my situation and told me about a group that he has to leave for a bit. One in particular, a half-orc, the unappointed leader of that group. He said he would leave word with them that I will be tagging along with them as their guide to help them in their adventures. He also introduced me to a Bard before he parted ways, saying that the bard was also going to be tagging along with the half-orc. There is something very familiar about this Bard. I can place my finger on it tho. He kind of reminds me of the musician that accompanied me to the battlefront many years ago, but I can’t remember his face and plus there is no way he is the same one, I was the only survivor.

The depiction on the mural was hauntng. A dark figure, cloaked in arcane or evil energies and carrying a book of some kind, was blasting away whole swaths of snakelike lizard people and defeating a pharoah-like figure and making them kneel… then seemingly cursing them with an unlife. Hard to understand. The mural spread around the great cavernous room, hundreds of feet of pictoral storytelling. Centuries old, it seemed.

This temple, whatever it was once, was buried under a hundred feet of sand dunes… falling through the great dome and discovering horrors down here long forgotten was its own hazard, but the silver tablet that told the story on the mural in the great prayer chamber? That was the real chilling experience.

Once, it seemed, this city was some major trade route. Then some ruler came, a human of some kind maybe or a small giant, and subjugated the lizard people with an army of snake people. Then slavery and genocide. For a long time, actually. Then a dark figure comes. Human maybe. It slaughters thousands, both sides, in its judgment. It raises the dead. It punishes the guilty. It murders the innocent. It moves on like a storm across the sands, uncaring.

And a city dies. And then ages later, its forgotten.

Until a group of fools on a treasure hunt halfway across the world decide to flee a port city on the edge of the desert by trekking right across the great, sandy wasteland where none would follow and days into the journey… fall through the roof of the city’s central temple.

The half-orc was cursed several times, nearly died, dark forces came for him and had to retreat again… the cleric fought arcane naga in a great prayer room and nearly died… the only real treasures were mysteries. Mysteries about a dark man ages back that destroyed a city now forgotten to time.

There were other horrors in the desert… great things that they hid from and clever things they had to murder to keep the horses and camels safe. Those nights on the sands were dangerous, but less and less so now that the bard took charge of the camp and kept them safe at night.

The real dangers, now, having moved past the desert after weeks of travel and hazard, was the winter that has come and the mountains they have to cross. The high peaks are covered in snows and ice, and days of climbing and crawling their way up half-frozen paths later they emerged to look across the hundred miles of rocky spires and overgrown majesties.

The air, crisp and clean; the bite of the wind. The serenity of the great vallies and ridges. The green of the winter trees and the white of the snows.

And in the distance, a great tree—a thousand feet high if any—half frozen in a glacier nestled between two mountain peaks. The whole scene as out of place as anything one could imagine… they approached.

The great wood was hundreds of feet thick at the base with gnarled roots the size of small buildings jutting out of the rocks. The top was hardly visible with the clouds, the whole thing in a foggy obscurity. And when the druid spoke to it, and heard its lost and booming voice echo in his mind the words “help me”, there was naught to do but climb.

Ropes taught and knotted, kits out and hammers ready, the started their journey up days ago. In that time they found creatures both natural and unnatural, things that might be living in the great tree and things that were only there to destroy it. And now, hundreds of feet in the air, they risk exposure, elements, falling, starvation, and certain bloody death from evil flying things that make their home here… they climb. They watch.

When Mercy, the famed Brigand King of Zoa, was revealed to the world as B’sar Ebonflowerwood, near every member of the clan, as well as the vast extended family, descended on the free cities to stake their claims, curry their favors, and bask in the reflected glory of their half-elven antihero.

The Ebonflowerwoods swept in from Kalamar, joined by their more distant relatives – the Mistsingerwoods of the Fohkki mountains, the Blackenwood clan who roamed the wooded outskirts of Hobgoblin empires, and even those few left remaining of the Flintwood family, a line of elves still recuperating from their near-extinction in Brandobia at the hands of Vox the Profane. They came, they claimed, they helped spend Mercy’s vast fortune, though none were more eager to waste a career of plunder than the Brigand King’s own bastard children – six duplicitous brothers and four equally ruthless sisters who were all too quick to carve their father’s empire to pieces upon his “natural” death.

In time, the family splintered into ever greater schisms. Most of the Ebonflowerwoods split in two, and the houses of Ebonwood and Flowerwood warred over Zoa. The Winewoods, Echowoods and Eldersnowberrywoods are said to have all arose in a single night over an argument involving two coppers and a cup of mead. Over the course of the next seventy years, Mercy’s extended family came to number an incalculable amount of half-elves of varying shades of moral dubiousness. The outside world barely differentiated between the disparate tribes, and chose instead to file them all under one fitting name – The Bastards of Mercy. Collectively, a sprawling family of hangers-on and nobodies, once feared and respected under the name Ebonflowerwood, now a bickering brood of thugs and grifters.

Of all the Bastard lines, one family was viewed with the least regard of all – the Flashwoods. Though some of their number boasted strong blood ties to the Brigand King himself, they were granted little respect. During annual meetings, where the “great” houses would come together and argue over titles and rights, nobody deigned to give the Flashwoods a seat at the table. Not one of their number ever had the honor of even once holding the fabled Map of Mercy – the last of the Brigand King’s treasures, a treasure that passed between half-elves as they gambled, traded, or stole the artifact between and from each other over the course of the past half a century. For years, the Bastards would trade this map amongst themselves, and as every half-elf held it, they would boast of finally going to Brandobia and setting out to claim the legendary wealth that Mercy himself had discovered. Nobody ever did.

Flynn Flashwood was different. He was a nephew of Mercy himself … or the nephew of a cousin of Mercy’s … maybe. Either way, he was as brave as his dragon-slaying forbear ever was, and he understood that a legacy was meaningless if a man couldn’t live up to it. He saw his kin and was disgusted at what they had become. Degenerate cowards, not like the brave warrior B’Sar Ebonflowerwood had been – the man who witnessed a God die with his own eyes, who could raise the dead and punch through thick steel doors. Mercy was a legend to his people, but his people were drunks, braggarts, and cowards.

That’s what Flynn told himself as he stowed the map in his backpack, and prepared to leave Zoa under cover of night. These men who sneered at him for being little more than a Flashwood, and a useless musician at that, were not fit to hold it. Of course, cousin Fel’dwyn would be furious when he woke in the morning and found that his prize was missing, but Flynn would be far from the city by then.

It was his time now. His chance to do what nobody in his family ever dared to do. He would become a legend.

Odom took it well. Not a month away from Phandelver and a few weeks in Bet Seder and their little awkward family changes. Most of it being Malleus’s doing, of course. Time back in Bet Kalamar amongst old officers and officials had reminded the campaigner what rewards awaited the powerful. A percentage of the Wave Echo Cave, intelligence on hobgoblin movements, and a fair pile of money had bought him influence again in the right places. He would be bound by a certain honor to Odom and his travel partners, but eventually he would be free of those debts.

Bast and Natsu left with him. The former to pursue some dark purpose he kept largely to himself, the latter to take the damned book back to the monastery he came from at the peak of one of the Kakidela Mountains. Hidden, he said, safe. Malleus had no doubt that the time might come when he’d need to negotiate with the Warlock to take that book from that monastery—and he genuinely hoped Natsu wouldn’t be there that day.

The three left unceremoniously in the rain, on the road back to Bet Kalamar. A week later, letters started coming to the inn in Bet Seder. Odom read them carefully and wondered yet again why he took on this journey. The only ones left were him and Astrid, the two local kids from the streets of Bet Dodera. Hometown boy and girl. An orcish thief who was driven to right some deep wrongs in the world, an elvish mage who wanted to rule it. Every time he thought about walking away he was reminded that the only person in the world she knew was him, only person she might trust as well. And if he turned his back on their quest to reach that island on the other side of the world, she’d go it alone and might die or (worse) find whatever hoard of power there and consume herself and everything else in the fires that might burn from using it.

He needed a drink.

Sometimes, the only way to unshoulder the burden of keeping the elf from blowing up everything and herself was to have a drink of Maisie’s ale—and the longer he stayed in Bet Seder the more he liked it. He’d heard of half-orcs falling prey to drink in stories back home. The subject of ridicule and mockery. “Lookat that greenie, puking it up!” Har, har, har. The drunken mountain wines of the Orcs were a fabled thing—supposed to taste like licking a salt rock and sipping piss with an alcoholic burn. Odom didn’t know. He resented much of the stories about orcs. He especially resented the ones he’d learned are true.

But he saved Gudren. He saved Sildar. He’d saved that whole town. And he’d be a real piece of shit to walk away from saving her and the rest.

But a drink, first. At least here in Bet Seder, nobody looked at him like he was a monstrous sheep-fucker. A drink in peace. Maybe Malleus’s “associates” would show up tonight or tomorrow.

The hulking figure downstairs, however, was clearly neither of the two Captain Malleus Exile wrote Odom about expecting.

His description was of a pair of half-elves (“…better to culturally reign Astrid in, perhaps—both have served a time with my former regiment, though I do not know them particularly well I can attest to their competency as soldiers…”). This one wasn’t.

Tall. Even taller than Odom, who usually towered half a head or more above most humans. Bright eyes. Young. But with a face like an overbeaten leather shield. He expected the large, armored man to sound like Malleus… curt, booming, a little unpleasant… instead, the large man stood straight away, extended a hand, and greeted him warmly with a smile.

His manner was more scholar than anything. The fine grammar of a learned man, the colorful and easy language of someone used to orating. Brand, he said his name was. A divine of the Riftmaster sent to look after Astrid, now that she’d joined the church. Brand explained that she’d be with the Keyholders there (and that he was one himself, if only a novice) for a while and he’d learned a fair bit from the other priests about the coming adventure to the edge of the world Odom had taken up and intended to accompany them to help guide the young elvish evocateur in the ways of the great River.

Normally, Odom would have been hesitant to accept the pleasant, though imposing man… but there was ale on the table and the thought of having someone able to properly direct Astrid’s inevitable development that knew anything about magic was a relief.

By the fourth round, it sounded like the best of ideas.

By the sixth, both the human and half-orc were well and truly drunk.

Four days, lots of wine and conversation, and several small contests of skill later… Malleus’s reinforcements arrived.

As was his habit, Brand was the one to greet them—sitting at a table. Ale poured. Awaiting them patiently.

Both half-elves had “the look”. Lithe. Tall-ish. Fair. Though, to the trained eye (and Brand had spent most of his life preparing for the Great Journeys of the world—learning geography, languages, histories, cultures), the one with the plain leather and well-kept wooden shield was Kalamaran in origin and the one with the jaunty and dapper leather hat (broad rimmed, well-oiled good leather, just the thing for keeping the rains off) had the somewhat ruddier look of a Renaarian native.

Time would tell their stories, but for now, they were wet from the rains and sick of the road, and the first round was already poured.

……….

Brand left word with the temple, having faith in his fellows there that their divinations would be more than up to the task of reuniting Astrid with them on the trail. He booked passage across the sea, four days travel, to Shogga-pravaaz—the City of Giants. The journey had begun, and his life’s purpose had started. He fondled the little glass vial on the thong around his neck, hearing the tap of the tiny, mummified hand inside as he rocked it to and fro.

Saving the whole of the cosmos, at last. Bringing the universe back into balance. A thrill to be alive. On deck, he looked out across the waters and steeled himself for what was to come.

Elf Wizards…….* sigh *. I now hate Elf wizards. Their spells are just annoying but boy do they hurt. It’s going to take a good days worth of meditating to get over the mental disaster I just encountered. They are crafty I will give them that but why can’t they just fight head on. All this running away and setting traps just means they will die tired. They might know a lot about the cosmos but my lord they are the dumbest smart people I know. With a little more tactics and a lot less bling bling he would have been a great adversary. But what can I say, Elf Wizards………. * shakes head *

Even such as us, der be it true, we gots rules. Ain’t never, ain’t never in life taken nuffin’ from no one ain’t look like dey weren’t need it anyhow. Poor bugger come runnin’ trough da hills and lookin’ like he ain’t worf nuffin’ and carryin’ only da rags on his back and such, me and my boys ain’t touchin’ him. Poor bastard gots enuff problems, dat’s what I’m of a mind of.

Sensible. Dat’s the word. I’m a sensible robber and only ‘cause der ain’t no work to be had in da hills. Never were, ‘cept runnin’ from Arcs. And dey run faster.

Why any fucker or fucker or fucker would be out in dese hills, ain’t no secret. Only two suches out here. Only two. We gots Arcs—big ole green bastards what love fuckin’ sheep and killing people and playin’ dat mountain clan music wit’ noise and rancor. We gots dat. And den we gots dat elfin fuck on da hill up north a ways. No, don’t know his name, sire sir… ain’t never been invited to dinner or nuffin’.

But dat fucker is famous in the hills. Him and his friends or fam or whatever dey are. Womens? Mens? I hear dere kind goes all ways and it ain’t my way, but nobody never asked me nuffin’ about dat.

Dey at da castle. Dey make lights and fearsome noise and such. All sounds like what a howler monkey gibberin’ at da bottom of a well might sound like—all floaty and weirdly. But dey dance to it like it were a bawdy tune on a good ole fashioned six string lute in a tavern after a drought. Elfin, do I say you mind, are weird damn creatures. All wearin’ gaudy lookin’ finery and rings and such. Here. In da hills.

Wit little men and whatnot followin’ ‘em around and servin’ derethirst or whatnot. I seent ’em put fine wine (in bottles, sire sir, bottles) on da heads of dem little men and whatnot and have ’em go out fifty pace and den just spend afternoons shootin little lights at ’em. Bust a bottle. Soak a little fucker thing. Laugh.

What da hell sense is dat?

Its like when my cousin got his da’s farm when we was youngerns. Sold it to da first fancy man what come to ask on it, took da gold and coin and started talkin’ fine and dressin’ fine and it was all “roast chicken from dat inn” dis and “lookat my new necklass, Cord” dat. Ugly fuckin’ necklass, too.

Dey shoulda never given dat fuck money.

But dey ain’t ask me, so it is.

Elfin. Weird damn creatures.

But da strangers came. Like a shot in da night and like an arrows flyin’ wit’ purpose. Da’ big man caught me and my boys doing a little robbin’ (no harm, no foulin’). Told us off, and let us go—I suspect he’s one of dem heros I hear about from da city. All pretty and feirce. Shiny sword and servants to carry his stuff and a woman to warm his tent. I’ll tell ya fine, he let us go wit a warnin’ and we took it.

But next day I saw dem track and trail—dey don’t seem to care about leavin’ one. Scary dat.

Dey went right to dat elfin castle.

Right dere, say it.

Me and Cobb watched from da Bastard Hill, right over dere, sire sir. Right dere.

Went right in, like dey was King Adoku hisself. Proud as you like.

Right up. And goes in. And about twenty minutes later, I fink or so, dat big tower dere… no, it WAS dere, sir… dat rubble… yeah. Dat pile of stone. It starts comin’ down! Boom! den a minute later BOOM! a little more. Den BOOOOOOM, nearly all done. Den a great fuckin’ crash and the whole fuckin’ tower just a pile o’ rocs. True, I say it true.

Pile o’ rocks.

I’ve pissed longer den it took for dat to come down.

Fuckin’est damn sight—’scuse me fine, sir.

Den dey just come strollin’ out, blastin’ hell and fire and lights and colors all behind ‘em like casual. Like dey were wavin’ friends away, but blastin’ em with fire and hell instead of wavin’. All casual. Like nuffin’. Dey looked like dey been stuffed in a sack and beat half-to-death against a tree like ya’ do with a snake on da farm… but, dey just strolled out to da courtyeard and would sit a while and walk back inside and light da place right up and den come out and someone else would go in.

Da whole time, dat whole hour more and more of da castle fallin’ apart like a crumblin’ loaf of hard cake.

Den, dey turned, and walked right off.

An I tell ya’, I walked da’ other fuckin’ way. Me and Cobb. Dey spared my shit life once, I don’t tempt no fate twice, and I say it true.

Free of ’em, sire sir.

Free.

FREeeeeee?

Hang on… hang on a minute… I know a spot of the Kalamaran… “THReeeeee”?

“THReee” of ‘em. Big man, pale lady, big fuckin’ damn creature of one? No idea. Is dat what merfolk look like? Or mebbe is dat a demon? Dunno. Scaley, brownish. Ain’t wearin’ no shirt, I don’t know dat its a man at all.

Dem, yessir. Just dem.

Any free fuckers who can walk into an elfin castle where an elfin lord or whatever has made his home for as many generations as my family can remember, wit his whole crew o’ bastards wit him… and bring da entire place down to rubble in da span of about an hour?

Dey can have it. Whatever dey want. Cord and his boys ain’t got no business wit dem.

Dey went dat way, yessir. City-wise.

Iffin’ ya could let me go, as a kindness, dat would be grateful. I have a wife, sire si—what do ya’ mean “dead”? I’m talkin’ fresh as can be. True, I don’t feel in pain after dat sword… dead?

Den how—?

The body twitched on the ground as the armored figure took his hand away from its head and stood. Cord’s soul would move on. He’d know rest, now. Holding his shade here made her queasy, and she was grateful the plate armor and helm hid that disgust—her companions didn’t need to know how little she liked doing that.

But the information was helpful. The old robber was watchful and clever, she’d see some of her brothers and sisters did right by his wife. A few coins, maybe a place in one of the temples inland.

Sonya walked back to the group.

“Darling girl. What did he tell you?”—dreadful as the weather was, Viscount Echai’s voice was rich and warm—as though the rain and storms were a joke and he would always find them funny.

“Captain Malleus. The Dragonborn. Astrid Firekin. Just them. He never saw the other two”, her voice was slow and heavy. She’d castigate herself over killing Cobb and Cord for weeks, it was a heavy price to pay, but she’d pledged her service to the Viscount and he never left witnesses to his investigations where he could help it.

The Viscount closed his eyes and raised his head to let the light rains splash down his narrow, pointed face. Dreamily. In contemplation. Of what? Sonya never knew. But she’d seem him think like this before and knew to be patient.

The others were by the horses, down the hill.

After a few minutes, which stretched out like an eternity in the silence, he shivered and shook his head—brushing away the thoughts that consumed him for those moments and returning to the now and the near.